Chords in Folk?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 02:56 PM

The, CR, centuries-old, frameworks of both poetry and folk were, to some extent, chopped last century; followed by, in both, much rationalisation - "things change or they die" "it enables us to easily translate the poems into other languages", etc...
I like metre and/or rhyme with reason; I like hearing just the top-line melody played and sung.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:02 PM

As I posted somewhere else...If I wanted a lecture I'd be in a university lecture hall

Umm and yu like metre and/or rhyme with reason?....well ooooook, what ever you say *LOL*

Volgadon, I do believe I agree with you on that point *LOL*

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:30 PM

WAV, reading through your posts reminds me of something Evelyn Waugh once said.
"to see him fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all the horror of seeing a Sevres vase in the hands of a chimpanzee."
Articles should not be cut off from their objects!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:41 PM

What about economy of exclamation-marks, V.?!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:56 PM

For print, I'd agree with you. For a semi-formal setting, such as an internet forum, perefectly acceptable. "The, CR, centuries-old, franework...." sounds bad even in speech.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 03 May 08 - 04:50 PM

If it's a good song and singer, accompaniment can detract from the performance, I think; and I wish more people would get a chance to hear good unaccompanied singing...it's found at festivals and clubs, of course, and occasionally on folk-radio - but a lot miss-out.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:10 PM

Look, for the last time, as far as I'm concerned, music is NOT a static museum piece, or pieces, it grows, it changes, it evolves

you said...

" It's widely accepted that for centuries it didn't change much - singing unaccompanied, repeating a tune for dance; and, I think, not just because there was not much other entertainment available to these folk, or the pride that they took in their tradition, but because just the top-line melody played or sung well sounds great.

well, sunshine, those days are long gone (as well as open field farming) , and all for the good. I and many others going to continue to 'plug in' and play. Me. I'll play my Strat as well as play my acoustic guitar, as well as sing unaccompanied, solo and with others, and dance a bloody jig if I want to.!!! (oh look a plethora of exclamation marks *LOL*)...oh and if I want to use, as an example, North American native drummers as accompaniment (which I have done) I will...got it? Good. Not very English I know, but there ya go.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 03 May 08 - 05:47 PM

"If it's a good song and singer, accompaniment can detract from the performance, I think; "

I think it can but I think it can also enhance. The performers are free to make their choices and I as a listener may find versions of songs I prefer which may or may not be accompanied ones.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 May 08 - 07:40 PM

The dickhead who started this thread began by talking about tunes and then didn't discuss anything but songs thereafter.

The dance music of the British Isles has been accompanied for centuries. Illustrations or descriptions of performances as far back as the Middle Ages mention drums and bass instruments.   Almost as soon as Scottish dance music began to published in large volume in the18th century, it was published with bass lines.   Virtually all the current Scottish dance tune repertoire (except pipe tunes) was conceived for textures including a cello or left-hand keyboard part. It mostly sounds crap on a solo melody instrument (and so do pipe tunes if you take the drones away and put nothing in their place).

This does NOT mean these tunes have canonical chordings like modern pop tunes. They were not conceived with the harmony first; the chords or bass vamps simply serve to delineate phrases in the dance, they don't "progress". It doesn't matter a great deal what the chords are so long as they change with the right timing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 04 May 08 - 12:39 AM

Walkaboutverse has only been interested in folk music for a few years(how few is up for grabs, as he gives different numbers in different places), and thinking back, in my early enthusiasm, I remember having made quite a few presumptuous and erroneous pronouncements about folk music myself(not to mention the presumptuous and erroneous pronouncements that I've made more recently).

I also have a lot of bad poetry that I wrote, and sang, with varying degrees of success. In fact, I stumbled across a box of old lyrics just this morning, so I am very reluctant to be dismissive of anyone else's efforts-

As to the issue of ego--It has been fairly convincingly put forward that, in order to perform or create in any genre or medium, one must be firmly and unshakingly self-absorbed, and supremely confident that, whatever anyone else may think say, your work, and the world view that it embodies, is the most important(though often useful to affect modesty)-

So, all things considered, he's in good company here--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 May 08 - 02:09 AM

M.Ted.

Thank you for explaining about duckhead dolk singers...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 May 08 - 04:23 AM

"TELLING &/or dancing, via the repetition of relatively simple TUNES." (me)...most people, JC!, would understand this to include the SINGING of folk lyrics...and I like you mentioning differences in Scotland, as I love our world being multicultural; further, I think this from you is worth repeating: "This does NOT mean these tunes have canonical chordings like modern pop tunes."
"Walkaboutverse has only been interested in folk music for a few years(how few is up for grabs, as he gives different numbers in different places)" (Ted)...There were some songs I somehow knew already (perhaps primary school in Aus.) but, yes, I've only been into folk for a few years - 2002 I turned up at the 35th Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering (which I've already posted, but follow the link above if you wish); I ended my collection "Walkabouts: travels and conclusions in verse" at the end of 2002 and began making songs or "Chants from Walkabouts", which I first sang, along wiht E. trads, at folk clubs in 2004; Is that precise enough for you? You then go on to be critical (sacrificing yourself in the process!), so I'll say that, although relatively knew, I did have a degree in humanities behind me, and that many of my poems have, since self-publication, been published elsewhere (again see above link, if you wish).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 May 08 - 05:20 AM

I doubt if England ever had very different instrumental lineups for dancing than Scotland. The point is that dance tunes were conceived for ensembles that had basses or harmonic potential, and when they were played by solo instruments the dancers would be filling in an accompaniment in their heads, just as they do now when hearing a well-known pop tune sung as a solo line.

Often if you haven't heard a tune with its original backing, it loses so much that you can't imagine why anybody would care about it. I don't listen to much pop music and never have, so when some kid starts singing a current hit on the bus I can't see anything in it. If I'd heard it in its original band arrangement I'd know why they were so enthusiastic about it. Most people's experience of traditional tunes is similar; they haven't experienced them played with a full band sound, and they sound just weedy as solo lines when you don't know where they came from. (Shetland fiddling is one genre where a solo melody instrument has usually been the norm, but it has often used scordatura tunings to add a quasi-drone, is often played by two fiddles in only partial unison, and it was designed to be played in tiny spaces where a solo melody has proportionately more impact).

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 May 08 - 06:05 AM

In the light of other threads (in particular those about Bert Lloyd) I've been thinking about the extent to which Traditional English Folk Song ever existed as an autonomous phenomenon, and to what extent it ever permeated English Culture as a whole. One wonders what else these Traditional singers of Traditional English Folk Song were singing, and how they might have been singing it.

And to what extent can we consider any aspect of English Culture as being autonomous (and therefore distinct) from that of its neighbours? The answer is, of course, we can't. The recordings of Davie Stewart, John McDonald and others would indicate that in Scotland accordions were traditionally used to accompany folk song. Traditional English singer Bob Roberts accompanied himself on a melodeon, and I'm quite sure he wasn't alone in this. So the evidence for chordal accompaniments to Traditional English Folk Song is there if you look for it.

Monophonic modality was considered a defining characteristic of Traditional English Folk Song by early collectors & I've heard it suggested that they were so bent on their agenda in this respect that songs that did not fit this criteria were overlooked, thus giving the somewhat distorted picture that has come down to us today.

To use this distorted picture as blueprint for how things should be done is perhaps a tad misguided, unless of course it fits ones personal agenda, or else ability, in which case one might expect a little more by way of humility when it comes to discussing a subject that, one suspects, might hot have figured very highly, if at all, in their pic n' mix humanities degree.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 May 08 - 07:54 AM

"To use this distorted picture as blueprint for how things should be done is perhaps a tad misguided, unless of course it fits ones personal agenda, or else ability, in which case one might expect a little more by way of humility when it comes to discussing a subject that, one suspects, might hot have figured very highly, if at all, in their pic n' mix humanities degree."...Is that fair?...I admitted, above, I knew little of polyphony and chords (just, rather, learning, playing and singing simply the top-line-melody), and I'll add, being yet more precise, that there was no musicolgy department within the school of anthropology where I finished my humanities degree - which should, though, have taught me what to look for when I got into folk. Another thing that I found helpful was a tape called Voices, which had some of the "big-names" from the English folk-scene of the 80s selecting an E. trad. each - most done with "monophonic modality", Sedayne.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 04 May 08 - 08:26 AM

WalkaboutsVerse eh, a self made man who worships his creator, doesn't he just love all this discussion about himself.

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

eric

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 May 08 - 09:06 AM

If you check, Eric, I've been talking about/debating the issue, and frankly answering those who questioned me. E.g, I just mentioned Voices: English traditional songs - nothing in that for me, but some may find the sleevenotes, which are on the web (at the top via a Yahoo search), intersting and relevant to the topic.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 04 May 08 - 02:05 PM

WAV's thread has started a discussion that has been very informative--I have been curious about the role of instrumental accompaniment in the various UK folk traditions, and have always been dubious of the idea that unaccompanied singing was some sort of cultural universal.

Music spreads easily, and the idea that in something must be popular before it can become traditional makes a lot of sense to me--in a way, the idea of "traditional" music ignores the fact that music is primarily disseminated laterally, that is, within a culture, in a place and time--Paul Simon said that "Every generation sends a hero up the pop charts", and the evidence is that it has ever been so--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 04 May 08 - 02:16 PM

WAV, you might like to look out for the follow-up album to "Voices". Also by Fellside and featuring big-name voices, it's called "Voices in Harmony". Great stuff.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 04 May 08 - 04:13 PM

I've been playing folk music publicly for 40 years (not wishing to pull rank, you understand) and for several years before that at home or with friends. For all of that time I've been listening to people making authoritative statements about how English folk songs should be sung , and it always prompts the same two questions: who says so? and on what authority? Folk songs are what people sing, regardless of their provenance. I am of the belief that there is no definable difference between 'popular' and 'folk', as has been touched on in other posts; any definition for one applies equally to the other. These songs are not 'folk' because of how you sing them, but because you do. Some people like to tell us that we should be singing English songs as the shepherds, ploughboys and carters' lads sang them in the back rooms of country inns in the years before the Industrial Revolution. I would make two contentions about that. Firstly, they weren't following any rules about how to sing folk songs, because there weren't any rules. Nobody had told them they were singing folk songs; they were just singing popular songs. Secondly, If you deliberately, and as a metter of policy, sing the songs in the way that you suppose it was done then - not that any of us can remember that far back - then what you are doing is not 'folk' or 'traditional'; it's period music. Nowt wrong with that; I have been involved - on and off - with period music for about 35 years; playing music of an era on instruments of that era and in the way - to the best of our knowledge - it was played then. The pretence is that it's the 13thC or 16thC or whatever, and not that it's folk music.
I have heard people referring to 'the purity of the melody', as though a folk song melody is somehow more pure than any other, and is free from harmonic taint. It isn't. There are inherent harmonies. Some of us can hear them, and some, I suppose, can't. And not only that, but what one person hears may not be the same as what another hears. I have no problem with unaccompanied singinsg or playing - I have done plenty of it myself. But when I accompany a song, whether it be a complex - almost baroque - confection or simply melody/drone, or melody with a few bare fifths or octaves thrown in here and there, it's expressing the way that that song sounds in my head. WAV might not like to listen to it; that's up to him. He has made the comment in one or two posts that what he's learned so far is to play melody. Lots of us have been at it a lot longer; maybe in time he'll find himself doing more. but it won't make the music any less - or any more - valid as folk music.
John Kelly.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 04 May 08 - 04:48 PM

Me again. Sorry to be boring, but another point I meant to make concerns the collectors. Their main concern was to note down the melody and lyrics, not to make a note of how the songs were sung. (And, as we know, they found wide variation in melody and lyrics - not to mention the same song sung to different tunes, and tunes being used for different songs; so much for purity.) Somebody mentioned C. Sharp's activities in the Appalachians; a friend of mine, who knows rather more about this than I do, tells me that when it became known that Sharp didn't want the songs accompanied, and paid more for them if they weren't, peope left the banjos at home. Was this Sharp not wanting the distraction of accompaniment while making his notes, or something more sinister? We know, of course that some collectors were not averse to making the facts fit their own prejudices.
John Kelly.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 04 May 08 - 05:02 PM

Frankly, John, when, on weekends, I go through my repertoire from Hymns Ancient and Modern and see 3 lines other than what I'm playing, I think it's beyond my musical abilities - certainly on the tenor-recorder! and on keyboards I use both hands for just the top-line.
But, on top of that, if you'll pardon the pun, I really do like hearing just top-lines well played or sung, and that's one reason why folk is my favourite genre.
Also, I think that a lot of folk in pubs (if not the stage) is just so nowadays - at sessions most are playing just the tune, yes?..and, at the singarounds I attend, more than half are indeed singing unaccompanied.
And I shall check that shortly, Marje...I'm wondering how many part harmony..?...all singing just the tune in close harmony, or something more sophisticated..?..art-songs from folk-songs, which apparently (I watched an early music series on the BBC a couple of years ago) also goes back centuries..?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Tootler
Date: 04 May 08 - 05:09 PM

WAV,If your first serious experience of English Folk music was the Northumbrian Gathering at Morpeth, then surely you must have heard Nortumbrian pipes being played in two part harmony. Fiddlers and other instrumentalists also do it in this part of the country, it is part of the tradition hereabouts and harmony parts are written for popular dance tunes. I have been guilty of writing such harmony parts myself. I find it quite a satisfying challenge to come up with a harmony part that is also a worthwhile melody in its own right.

If harmony is not part of the tradition, then perhaps you can explain the popularity of various squeezeboxes with their built in chords - the players certainly made use of them. Going further back, Thomas Hardy's village band in "Under the Greenwood Tree" consisted of three fiddles and a Cello. Don't tell me the cello simply doubled the melody an octave (or two) lower.

No, I think it more likely than not that harmony has long been part of the tradition. It is informal harmony, often improvised, rather than the formal harmony taught in music schools and often commits such heinous sins as singing in parallel fifths and octaves.

Of course there is a tradition of unaccompanied solo singing as well. If that's what you like, fine, but please don't tell others what they should and should not be doing - not that they'll take any notice.

Geoff

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 04 May 08 - 05:49 PM

Art songs from folk songs, and also folk songs from art songs--

My point above, lost as usual, is and was not that WAV is either good or bad at music, poetry, or I"MHO philosophy", but that he is actively engaged in the process--listening to, playing, learning about, and thinking about the whole fabric of folk/tradition, which is what keeps it all alive--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Harmonium Hero
Date: 04 May 08 - 06:04 PM

WAV "... on keyboards I use both hands for just the top line"
Try playing a drone with one hand. Or better, get an Indian harmonium. These usually have drones - up to five - and you pick the two (tonic/dominant) for the key you want. One hand pumps the bellows, while the other plays the melody. No need to do more, although you can throw in the odd fifth or octave, or be more adventurous if you want. Drones give a basic harmony, and playing or singing against drones is a long-standing tradition in popular music throughout Europe and the Middle East; bagpipes, hurdy gurdies, zithers of the langeleik/epinette/Appalachian dulcimer type, and fiddles have used drones since the Middle Ages and earlier. England has not been immune.....
John Kelly.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 May 08 - 06:44 PM

For the past three years I've been using an antique Hungarian Citera, unique among the diatonic European Board Zithers (i.e the Langeleik / Epinette / Appalachian dulcimer type) in having a second row of frets for the missing notes of the scale. This is a curious solution to a particular problem which introduces different modal possibilities without compromising the essential purity of the diatonic / Phythagorean scale. In many of these diatonic board zithers, the Swedish Hummel in particular, the melodies are traditionally played by harmonising in thirds against the open drone strings, an approach which certainly suits the citera, be it traditionally or else in the accompaniment of Traditional English Folk Song...

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 May 08 - 06:56 PM

For the ultimate in portable monophony try the Stylophone! Seriously, the new ones have a mini-jack input for an mp3 player, so I've been creating drones by way of backing tracks and using the mp3 player to play them back through the stylophone speaker, and using the stylophone itself to accompany the voice in unison. I might add that so far this has been an entirely domestic diversion, though I dare say I'll be taking it out into singarounds soon.

For a sample of how this actually sounds check out my Stylophony Number One at http://www.myspace.com/dh7haha.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 04 May 08 - 07:40 PM

Hey WAV, it's very good of you to keep this thread going and everything but we don't want to waste your time. Surely you must have trains to spot?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jerry Epstein
Date: 04 May 08 - 09:49 PM

Many tunes (both fiddle type tunes and songs) imply chords. But many do NOT do so at all. In many such cases, putting chords under the tune butchers it -- my opinion of course. English dance tunes often are very chordal in nature, Irish tunes often not, thus accompaniments are often not too much more than one chord, and players of things like bouzouki are often playing the tune with some drone strings sounding. To force standard chords on to these, in my opinion, does real harm, and one needs to provide supporting accompaniment (if at all) with considerably more skill and taste then "Where do I change from C to G?".

This is perhaps even more true for the songs. Listen (among countless others) to some of the old ballads on the Jean Ritchie ballad records from folkways (now reissued   on CD and available from Jean and George). TO put chords under these would be a complete nightmare. . .

One of the signs of good taste is knowning when to leave things alone. Unaccompanied songs or tunes are not necessarily missing something.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 05:36 AM

I agree with most of that Jerry but "English dance tunes often are very chordal in nature"?...Morris, e.g., was originally accompanied with just pipe (tune) and tabor drum (rhythm)...yes?
Sedayne - I do look forward to a singaround with you and your stylophone.
To Captain Swing - never been into train spotting, although they are my favourite form of transport/travel...in a coach one can barely swing a...
And I was going to mention trad Indian music, John, which has generally/always? been one note at a time, yes?...and that's why many there have taken to the hand-pumped version of the French harmonium, yes? Also, just the other day on BBC Gaelic radio e.g., I have enjoyed the tune being intoduced on bagpipes, followed by singing over the drone, as you suggest.
I've never tried, but I'd guess electrical keyboards can be set-up similar to the way you suggest for harmoniums - one key plays that note plus a fifth or an octave above it, as well, yes?...that would give a thicker and, some would say, richer/warmer sound but, again, I'm afraid, I'd probably rather just sing with the top-line melody only.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 May 08 - 06:37 AM

WAV - If you've got one of those electric keyboards with various voices, choose one with a sustain - organ, flute or violin. Forget about the black notes for now, and imagine the white notes as a pure diatonic Pythagorean scale - though of course it's tempered, which is to say perverted for the sake of western chromaticism so that lot of the intervals are far from pure.

Take a piece of insulating tape and tape down one of the keys as a drone, try the D to begin with, and play a scale using only the white notes between D & the next D. This is a mode - the Dorian Mode to be precise - which has unique musical characteristics beyond either what we might conventionally think of as either Major or Minor. C to C is a Lydian Mode, which is identical to the major scale, each note of which Lydian Mode can become a drone for another mode - D gives Dorian, E gives Phrygian etc. each with their own characteristics largely forgotten in Western musical theory. From hereon in, the territory gets interestingly archaic, but essential, I would think, to any understanding of folk music, which is inherently modal and monophonic, though in no way, of course, does this preclude harmony, or yet heterophony.

For more on this see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_mode

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 07:31 AM

Thanks, Sedayne - I see what you mean: really just setting up a keyboard similar to bagpipes, with one (or more) notes taped down as the drone(s); but what I like, and keep trying, to do is play like I sing / and sing like I play (with both recorder and keys), and I sometimes go through the chromatic scale on my tenor-recorder to help with this (see myspace) - indeed, I've read/heard that recorder comes from the olde-English word "recorden," which means to warble or sing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 05 May 08 - 08:17 AM

Wandering off topic here, but Sedayne, that Stylophony track is something else. I think I have to get myself a Stylophone after hearing that. Quite right about modes and tempered scales. I love to hear untempered intervals in folk music.

Getting back on topic , accompaniment can take many forms, drones, counter-melody, close harmony, block chords. A good accompanist knows this. Chords aren't the be-all and end-all of an accompaniment and they certainly aren't the End Of The Tradition As We Know It.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 05 May 08 - 08:47 AM

I had a thought. In the medieval court of Yaroslav the Wise there was a semi-legendary bard by the name of Boyan. He is mentioned in the lay of Prince Igor (I can't remember if he features in the opera or not) and became a very popular folk figure. He would accompany himself on the gusli, a form of psaltery. A hundred years or go a form of button accordeon was invented in Russia and named the Bayan, in honour of Boyan. It became immensley popular for both dance tunes and for ACCOMPANIYING FOLK SONGS!!!!
Why? It could play not only the top line, but chords, bass and pretty much whatever your fingers wanted to do. Forget balalaikas, the bayan is seen by most people as the national instrument.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 05 May 08 - 10:17 AM

"Pure" intervals are overrated, you need a fair amount of dissonant tension to give color to a note(solo instrumentalists use a variety of techniques to alter pitch to provide interest,and listeners tend to perceive strict adherence to pitch as artificial and mechanical) and the whole idea of diatonic harmony revolves around resolving from a dominant seventh. One of the reasons that the "tempered" scales were developed was that, with the introduction of metal strings, more "pure" harmonic overtones were audible, and dissonances that had not been apparent became apparent.

As to the idea that modes somehow disappeared from Western music, it is not true--modal theory was incorporated into classical music theory, and, in fact, without using modes, you can't write harmony lines--

And, to set the record straight, "C to C" is an Ionian mode, not a Lydian mode.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:27 AM

About the "Voices in Harmony" album, WAV: there are a number of groups (mostly twos and threes) singing in harmony. I'm not sure what you mean when you ask whether they're "all singing just the tune in close harmony" - if they're all singing just the tune, that's not harmony, it's unison. If they're all singing the tune but in different keys (say a fourth apart) that's an old-style harmony called " organum" or "parallel fourths" (or fifths) - it sounds a bit spare and edgy, and it's not usual.

What they are normally singing are conventional harmonies based around the chord that related to each note or each bar. They're not "close" in the sense that barbershop harmonies are "close" - that's something different again. They are similar to the harmonies that would be used if the tune was arranged for, say, piano, or string quartet.

They are very far from being "art-songs", most having quite a rough, earthy sound, and some of the arrangements go back centuries.

What I find fascinating is how very different each duo or trio or quartet sounds, in contrast with classical singing, in which a given setting of a song sounds pretty similar even when sung by diffferent voices.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Marje
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:33 AM

Oh, and a follow-up, WAV, in response to your observation about pub sessions: yes, many of the musicians are playing the tune most of the time, but some instruments include chords and drones that provide a harmony (guitar, mandolin, melodeon, accordion, some concertina playing, some pipes) so there will be quite a lot going on apart from the melody. If the melody is a simple one - say, a slowish waltz - you'll often hear improvised harmonies on recorder/whistle/fiddle or other melody instruments.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:50 AM

Thanks, Marje - I was already clear on your second post, but not your first: I was thinking if, say, a natural-tenor and a natural-base sang the tune/top-/single-line melody together, it would be harmony singing.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:54 AM

I have a stylophone. It's not easy to tape the stylus in place, so when I've used it as a drone when playing a recorder I've simply held it between my toes.

"a curious solution to a particular problem which introduces different modal possibilities without compromising the essential purity of the diatonic / Phythagorean scale. In many of these diatonic board zithers, the Swedish Hummel in particular, the melodies are traditionally played by harmonising in thirds against the open drone strings"

Sedayne, you don't know what the Pythagorean scale is. It makes fourths and fifths pure - thirds and sixths sound worse than they do in the equally tempered scale. You are thinking of either just intonation or some version of meantone, which are entirely different.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray)
Date: 05 May 08 - 01:55 PM

M.Ted - Slip of the finger; sorry - I meant Ionian, of course.

Jack - When I say Pythagorean scale, I mean a diatonic scale derived from the cycle of fifths. This is how I tune my medieval harp & the thirds sound just fine to my ears, much as they do on the citera. According to Panum (etc.) the European Board Zither (which she refers to as the Balk Monochord, including such instruments as the citera) derives from the Pythagorean monochord. I dare many will dispute this (even I find it a bit far fetched) but it seems at least apposite to a call a fretted non-tempered diatonic scale on a monochordal instrument with such a supposed provenance Pythagorean, though I dare the actual scale on this instrument derives more from the pragmatics of trial & error on the part of the maker than any familiarity with Ancient Greek mathematics as such.

This stuff always gave me a headache to be honest, but years of reading Harry Partch has left me with an enduring mistrust of the various givens of Western Classical Music and the theory and practise thereof.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:19 PM

I'm almost convinced that WAV knows what he's talking about, note I said almost *LOL*

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray)
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:48 PM

Jack - More importantly, I do like the idea of holding down stylophone drones with the feet. I did draw up plans for a mounting of switches until I figured the easiest thing to do would be to solder the stylus wire direct to the keyboard & use the tuner to change the pitch. For now, the mp3 drones do the job just nicely.

Times like this I pine for my old electro shruti box...

WAV - You come along to Joe's Come-All-Ye next month and I promise you some traditional stylophony!

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:49 PM

...we're seeing the light here in Newcastle, too - spring at last! :-)

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 May 08 - 02:58 PM

I was joking...of course.....

as I stated earlier in the thread..."I see WAV has created YET another canvass for his seemingly never ending ego."


Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 05 May 08 - 03:29 PM

I am sure Jack will have some interesting things to say about the way you tune your harp, Seldayne, and I will defer the issues scale construction to him--I am curious to know why you decided to tune your harp in that manner--

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:06 PM

who put the bom in the bomba bomba bom?

who put the titty into the titty fa la, fa lay?

who put the C, F, G7, Am, Dm7, Em, G, D into Christy Moore?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:45 PM

If I may skip genres for a moment to the woodwind section of the BBC(4) Young Musician Awards, which I just really enjoyed - but why on earth must they have the accompaniment of a pianist who him- or her-self could be on or off form...why can't we hear just the flute, clarinet, obeo?

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 May 08 - 04:55 PM

"but why on earth must they have the accompaniment of a pianist who him- or her-self could be on or off form...why can't we hear just the flute, clarinet, obeo?

and...the answer to your question is...because that's the way the piece was played, with piano accompaniment.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 05 May 08 - 05:03 PM

...but we heard them practising their pieces unaccompanied, and it sounded great, CR.

Subject: RE: Chords in Folk?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 May 08 - 05:09 PM

Look the finished product had piano accompaniment, regardless of YOUR personal preferences, that's the way it was played, so get over it!

Charlotte R